It may read like a headline from The Onion but, sadly for Costis Mitsotakis, it’s all too true.

Every Christmas in Spain, there is a lottery draw so grand it’s called El Gordo, which translates as “the fat one.” And the tiny village of Sodeto has had some serious cause for celebration after all of the 70 households — except for one — purchased tickets via the homemakers’ association. And these lucky locals’ number came up (58268), resulting in them getting a share of the monster $950 million first-place prize.

Sure enough, these residents (mainly farmers and unemployed construction workers) walked away with millions. They might not have simply split El Gordo between themselves (there were 1,800 winning tickets) but the minimum payout for them was $130,000, which is more than a step in the right direction. In a nutshell, the way it was divvied up in Sodeto, the more tickets you bought, the more multiples of $130,000 came your way.

But before we crack open the champagne and light our cigars in collective cheer, spare a thought for Mr. Mitsotakis. As the town’s mayor was using a megaphone to congratulate everybody, it soon transpired that the good folk from the homemakers’ association, who were selling the tickets, had neglected to knock on his door.

Unsurprisingly, Mitsotakis has said that it would have been nice to win (which is already NewsFeed’s understatement of the year) but, in a sense, he’s set to benefit from the windfall coming the way of his neighbors. It turns out that he’s trying to sell some land and it had been proving difficult to shift. But just a day on from the earth-shattering event, a neighbor told him he’d buy it; the following day another neighbor expressed interest. But Mitsotakis has refused to enter into a bidding war, saying, “This is a small village, you don’t want bad feelings.”

If anyone deserves a healthy slice of luck and good karma, we think we know who’s at the head of the line.